There’s been lots of pessimistic talk about 2016 (mostly thanks to Trump) but regardless, it was great year for me.

After 3 difficult years of dealing with the effects of a major mental health crisis, I’ve made some huge steps to rebuild my life..

Today I’d like to share the things that made it so good, and give you a peak into the year ahead.

Those damned medications

One of the impacts of my illness is the medications I take. They have been critical for keeping me well but like everyone I would rather not be taking them – but only if I am not at risk of reverting to that deep, dark hole of depression. Nothing is worth that.

In 2016 I tried to cut back one of my depression meds. However I did it too fast and after several weeks I could feel myself slowly slipping into that black hole. I reversed the dosage and over the next few weeks I came right again. It was disappointing but I will try again. This time I will cut back the dosage ever so slowly and see how it goes.

I did have success in getting off my anxiety medication. It wasn’t easy. Benzodiazepines are notoriously hard to kick. The withdrawal symptoms are much like the symptoms of anxiety; continual headaches, sleep disturbance, blurry vision and brain fog amongst others. At times, it’s difficult to tell the side-effects from the illness.

It took me nearly a year to wean myself off 2mg of Lorazepam – but I’ve done it. My over-active stress responses have settled and my brain is working so much better. Watch out, the creative juices are flowing again. Who knows where it will lead me? 🙂

Mindfulness

Having just returned from another insightful 7-day silent retreat at Te Moata Retreat with teacher, Stephen Archer, I got to reflect on how four years of practicing mindfulness has changed my life.

My regular mediation practice has an immediate effect in calming the noise and helping me focus.

And then there’s the long-term effects – which is less obvious. On reflection I can see how I response to the world and deal with events is kinder and healthier. I know that despite what happens in my life, I am fundamentally okay.

There are, and always will be, good times and bad. But no matter what happens, life is doing it’s thing.

Blog – She Loves Life Over 50

I made a slow start but after months of playing with ideas it all fell into place. That’s when I woke up one morning with a flash of inspiration. SheLovesLifeOver50.com is the result.

I’m building this blog site over the next 12 months to include a range of products to help other women over 50 seeking support for:

* Career change or realignment

* Self-employment

* Recovery from:

– burnout

– depression

– anxiety

* Turning setbacks into success!

Plans include developing my coaching programme (face-to-face and on Skype), online resources and to publish a guide to loving life over 50.

I am really enjoying the creative aspect of this project, which fulfills my personal mission to live with grace, help others and stay creative. You can check it out and subscribe www.sheloveslifeover50.com

Coaching/Mentoring

The book includes several practical task sheets. While working through one of these I was reminded of all the reasons I love being in business. However any new business needed to be portable, flexible and made use of all the things I have learned over 57 years.

Starting something new is always scary – that mix of excitment and apprehension never goes away. But since starting the blog and putting my hand up as a coach/mentor, I have worked with some wonderful people to help them take their own transitions.

In 2016, I also worked with Keong Wong on the Heart Strategy project. Keong is back living in Auckland and further developing this wonderful tool that truly does get to the heart of what make you happy. So in 2017 I will be integrating the Heart Strategy into my coaching program.

My first grandee

On 19th November, we welcomed Arna May into the world. I was fortunate to be at her birth where she was born with one arm waving above her head as if to say, “It’s me. I’ve arrived.”

It had been a nervous four months up until this moment with my daughter Jacqui being put on bedrest. Having lost a prem baby previously, we all knew how much it meant to give this wee girl the best chance of survival.

My job for those four months was to care for Jacqui while she did her job as the human incubator. This time was very special for us and I am so pleased I was able to do it. There is nothing else I would have rather done with my time.

Now that Arna is here I’m savouring the joyful times, especially our play dates. I know Arna and I are going to be great friends.

(Thanks to the influence of my India friends, I have chosen “Nani” at my grandmother title. In Hindi it means mother’s mother. Perfect!)

Plans for 2017

I have learned that sharing our stories and being vulnerable and courageous, is key to helping others. I will do more of this in 2017.

My goals include ramping up my coach/mentoring business – so please let me know if you know anyone who might be interested in what I’ve got to offer. Also building SheLovesLifeOver50.com into sustainable online business – with a steady income stream.

Plus it’s a while since Grant & I had a big travel adventure – so later in the year we are planning a return trip to India. This time to Goa and the southern states. We also plan to visit Grant’s son in Adelaide over winter.

The Johnson Group business is in good shape. In my role as a director I’m involved in governance and strategy, while our fabulous staff deliver great services to our clients and candidates.

Best wishes for a great year in 2017. Please drop me an email if I can help you in any way.

Back in Wellington, now what?

It’s been a few days since I got home from Te Moata Retreat and life is good. Some great ideas have come to me while at Te Moata, and since. One of these is that I spend far too much time trying to craft the words in this blog.

My previous blog post was written during three days when the rain never stopped. As a result I got stuck inside my head, working on that damn blog post continuously, until the sun finally came out again.

Some days I write, and then rewrite, the simplest of ideas. The problem is that I doubt myself, my thoughts and words. It is painful and I’m not sure it’s all worth it. At the same time, I know that writing is good for me. I also know that writing about my experience with depression and anxiety helps others.

People have shared their stories with me and I know I have made that easy for them. So, while I am feeling really great about myself, I still doubt myself and my ability to write this blog.

Enough of that. I’m going to write – no matter what.

Life at Te Moata – The Highlights

Living and working with a small team of international travellers is great. I learn a lot from them about how the world should be run. There are always good ideas, especially if I listen carefully and do not disregard their ideas as emotional and naive.

Working as a kitchen hand, with fantastic vegetarian cooks, is an awesome experience. I helped prepare really, really good food for the yoga teacher retreat students and wwoofers.

Bathing in the Moata Stream, which is fed from cold spring water, was a body awakening experience. It is so cold that I have to shampoo my hair before I get in, so that I can’t back out of dunking myself underwater to rinse out the suds.

I learned to sing. More correctly, I learned that I could sing. Anxiety has throttled my throat and cramped my breathing. In my singing lesson I learned to relax my throat, produce the sound from within my body and to open my mouth. That’s made all the difference. I can sing! And I can sing in tune when I listen really hard. Yeah!

Spending time in my head, asking myself the questions that lead to the insights and empower my growth, is never wasted. I have come away with a new sense of purpose and am ready to get on with the next stage of my life.

What’s stopping me? That was absolutely the best question I could ask myself. The answer that came was surprising but not really unexpected. It’s fear, fear of ever going back to that dark place that was my experience of depression.
This fear has been holding me back from getting on with my life, but just acknowledging it has helped. I am finding ways to reduce the chance of getting to that soul destroying level of depression.

Coming home

Living in the Coromandel bush every day for 2 weeks was a blessing. Coming back to the inner city of Wellington has been an adjustment. I seem to notice, even more than usual, the people who aren’t coping; living rough or just getting by. It’s in their body language and how they look.

We live in a beautiful city but this doesn’t mean it’s easy. Life in the city, without a strong connection to nature, takes nature out of us and leaves a vacuum. I need to think about how I can fill this space better.

So what now?

I’m back home, enjoying my family and very excited about my projects. The next Heart Strategy workshop planning is underway and very soon I will launch my new coaching service. I still need to take care to manage my energy, but aside from that, I am ready to get out and try new things.

So what about this blog post?

This time, I am trying not to second guess myself and doubt my writing abilities. This blog is coming to you without the multiple rewrites and edits. Life’s too short and I have lots of things I want to do and people I can help.

Don’t forget to subscribe for regular updates and more fab insights on how to deal with life’s hiccups.

A guide to planning happiness

Aside from my wwoofing duties, which involve about 4-5 hours a day as a kitchen hand, I am free to do as I please.

It was while I was considering how to use this time that I began thinking about happiness and how we make decisions about what we do with our time.

How good are we at choosing what makes us happy?

We falsely believe that we make conscious decisions about how we spend our time and that in making these choices, they are bound to make us happy.

From my experience, that’s not the case. The reality is that our behaviors and habits form and become entrenched, long before we begin to make conscious choices.

Consequently our lives are full of activities driven by instincts or conditioning. That’s when we keep asking ourselves; I should be happier than this, shouldn’t I?

So here’s a new plan for greater happiness.

Happiness is a combination of many feelings and it is the mix of these feelings that is unique for each one of us.

Imagine a time in your life when you were really happy.

Take a moment to get really curious about the feelings you experienced. Was it love, connection, gratefulness, fulfillment or even pure joy?

Then make a list of these feelings.

Next, write a description for each feeling in a way that captures what that feeling means to you!

Now you can choose the activities or experiences that will result in the feelings you have listed.

It’s as simple as; know which feelings make up your happiness narrative and then decide what experiences will initiate the desired feelings.

So how does this work for real?

There are a number of feelings within my chosen memory, but what stands out is the feeling of being nurtured.

For me, nurture is about being grounded and spending quality time with people I love. It might also involve nice food and gentle exercise.

Knowing that it is the feeling of being nurtured which brings happiness; I can then make thoughtful decisions about how to spend my time.

For the past few days I have put this plan into practice here at Te Moata. So far, my free time has included taking a daily nap, bathing in the stream, meditation, bush walks and eating great vegetarian food with a lovely bunch of young travellers.

How lucky am I?

PS. This process for planning your happiness is an element of the Happiness Matrix workshop that I recently co-hosted with Keong Wong in Wellington. If you would like to find out more this workshop, which is currently in the testing stage, please leave a comment below.

Like this:

The choices we make

One of my early decisions for letting go was to allow my two-year-old daughter to choose her own outfits. As a result, she wore the craziest, mis-matched clothes of any child I knew. Getting her delivered to pre-school before work was a challenge in itself. This meant that my opinion of what she should wear was far less important.

Fortunately, while she stood out like a beacon in the playground, she never felt uncomfortable. Even now, she chuckles at old photos and is proud of being able to dress herself from a very young age.

Living up to expectations

Trying to live up to others expectations affects us deeply and causes of a lot of pain. Measuring our success against self-imposed standards that are almost impossible to meet, is a significant contributor to depression and anxiety.

The antidote to my own long-standing self-imposed restrictions is to write this blog. It’s my way of expressing myself, just as my daughter expressed herself by wearing those crazy outfits. She didn’t care what people thought and I try not to worry about the response to my blogs. I only hope they are entertaining and useful.

To celebrate 2015…

I have put together a reunion of my most popular posts. I have enjoyed writing about my travels around New Zealand, raising awareness of mental health, my own struggles and even published my first poem.